Preflight

It's the key to improving

Feedback is important to the process of learning to fly--and to many other things in life, for that matter. Think about the sensations you feel as you fly, especially those transmitted to you through the control yoke and rudder pedals. As your airplane accelerates during its takeoff roll, the lightness you feel in the nose is a good sign that you're nearing rotation speed--and, more subtly, of how the elevator trim is set. In most airplanes the painfully slow roll rate, combined with mushiness in the controls, tells you that you're approaching the stall. Don't forget that seat-of-the-pants sensation that tells you when you're not in coordinated flight.

What would flying be like without control feedback?

I remember the first few times I flew Microsoft Flight Simulator with a joystick, and later with a yoke. Absent the feedback provided by the flight controls in a real airplane, trying to fly the virtual equivalent was, well, weird. Without those tactile cues being transmitted by cables and pushrods from the control surfaces, it felt nothing at all like the physical airplane. Eventually I overcame the absence of feedback, relying instead on the visuals.

The feedback issue is why many fly-by-wire aircraft--which relay control inputs electrically from the yoke or stick to actuators at the control surfaces--employ artificial feedback. And feedback is increasingly common on higher-end flight simulators today.

Feedback is also critical to us here at the magazine. We always enjoy hearing from readers and learning what information is most important to you as you learn to fly. Just like in flying, we use all the feedback we receive to improve the quality of the magazine's content.

We're especially appreciative of the hundreds of you who have taken the time to respond to our series of online readership surveys, which continues into next year. You'll receive an invitation in the mail to take the survey if you're randomly selected to participate. If you get an invitation letter, we hope you'll take the 15 to 20 minutes required to complete the survey. Your opinions really are important to us.

As a group, you have been very interested in our new Career Pilot section (see p. 55), which debuted in the July issue. Among its monthly features is "The Career Advisor," a monthly Q&A written by Wayne Phillips, AOPA Flight Training's careers columnist. Readers can submit questions via e-mail; unfortunately, because of the number of questions, they cannot all be answered individually.

My first indication that the July issue had been delivered to readers was the careers mailbox--questions for Wayne began to populate it almost immediately. The most common question to date has been, "Am I too old to seek a job with the airlines?" Many of the questions read something like this:

I just got my commercial pilot certificate.
I'm happy but at the same time sad because of my age. I'm 40 years old with only 400 hours. My dream is to get into the bigger airlines.
I want to know if my age will be a factor.

I don't want to steal any of Wayne's thunder--he'll be writing more extensively on this topic next month--but in a recent conversation Kit Darby, president of Atlanta-based aviation career consulting firm AIR, Inc., told me that because of the strong hiring outlook, even I could land an airline job if I wanted one. Despite a vision problem in one eye that requires an FAA waiver to meet the requirements for a third class medical certificate.

Applying to the airlines is not on my list of things to do. It's just not the kind of flying I want to do, and I'm not sure I could afford the pay cut I'd have to take as a new hire at a regional. But for those who can adapt to the pay and lifestyle changes--for example, the professional and technical folks who have written, interested in the idea of a career switch--the outlook is very positive.

If you plant to attend AOPA Expo 2007 in Hartford, Connecticut, this October, don't forget about Career Pilot Live. Phillips will talk about flying careers, including strategies to help you land the flying job you want, and the current hiring outlook. He will speak on Saturday, October 6, from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. in Room 13 of the Connecticut Convention Center. For more information on Expo, see AOPA Online.

Any flight instructors planning to attend AOPA Expo 2007 in Hartford are cordially invited to join us for AOPA Flight Training's annual CFI Roundtable. The meeting will be held Saturday, October 6, from 11 a.m. to noon in the Marriott Hartford's Capital 1 room. The hotel adjoins the convention center. Discussion topics will include technically advanced aircraft, the sport pilot certificate, and AOPA's Project Pilot. For more information on the meeting, send me an e-mail. Ground instructors are welcome, too.